


snowstorm

by texting_fangirl



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Hugs, Last Moments, Snow Storm, Snowed In, Stranded, Surviving, cuddling to keep out the cold, hunk being a caring teddy, hunk cuddles, i guess lmao, love me that platonic love, rated for partial consensual nudity, spaceship without power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 08:56:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15336342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texting_fangirl/pseuds/texting_fangirl
Summary: The blue and yellow lion unexpectedly malfunction and lose power, causing them and their paladins to get stuck on an unnamed, uninhabited ice planet. Surrounded by evergrowing clouds and piling mountains of snow, the sun collectors soon can't provide the back-up generators with enough energy anymore.In a last attempt to keep both of you alive, Hunk makes an offer you can't really refuse.





	snowstorm

The thin, ultra durable and insulating emergency blanket crinkled softly as you moved. Your breathing seemed awfully loud in the quiet room, but now and then an agonizing groan of metal on metal would reach your ears, as the lion surrounding you would adjust and settle further. It wasn't exactly comforting.

The electrical doors leading to the cockpit in the wall across from you whirred open, but the sound cut off towards the end and died on a last, desperate note.

"Ho no, not good..."

You lifted your head and blinked up at the figure that stood in the dim glow of the lights.  
"What's our status?"

"Eh..." Hunk came over after giving the doors a last, inspecting once-over, huffing out a breath of air as he sat down next to you. Wordlessly you passed him the second blanket that you had kept draped over your legs for the last hour, and he shivered when he wrapped it around him.  
"The yellow lion has lost power completely, and the main engines of blue are down. I tried using the atenna and sending a distress signal, but have no idea if it went through before power shut off. There's a bit of fuel left for the back-up generators, but if the storm doesn't clear soon, those will run dry, too. After that it's only a matter of hours before we run out of air. If we don't freeze to death before that."

The voice of the mechanic went low towards the end as he stared at the wall, undoubtly trying to come up with ways on how to turn the situation around on the last minute. "How about you? You holding up okay?"

You looked up and into his worrying eyes, and it drew your lips into a smile. Something tickled your cheeks and as you briefly glanced down you realized it was ice. Smiling was painfully stretching your tight skin, and you stopped.  
"Little cold." You admitted, burying your nose and lower face back into the shawl Hunk had produced out of who knows where.

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly.  
"They'll find us." He whispered. You held his eyes for a moment longer, even after they had lost focus on you, and you thought that he might be saying this to convince himself.

"Couldn't we program the lions to take off and fly back to the castle on autopilot after establishing enough energy via sun collectors, even if we're unconscious in here?"

Hunk shifted and looked down on his knees, covered in foil.  
"Theoretically, yeah, but reprogramming is Pidge's thing. I only know how to hardwire stuff, and even if the lions had this sort of emergency protocol installed, we don't have any way of accessing it without the main power."

"Mhm."

Silence fell again, only now and then broken by crunches and moans of the tech surrounding you.

"You're not shivering."

Having almost dozed off, your head jerked up at his sudden words, and you were confused for a moment until you remembered where you where, and with who.  
For a moment you kept still, observing your own body.

"Huh. Guess you're right." You shifted your legs and found them numb from the knees down; when you tried to grab the blanket tighter your fingers only moved after a great deal of convincing. Your eyelids seemed heavier than usual. "The cold isn't too bad, anymore. Did you manage to fix the heating?"

A look to his face told you he had very much not, and the almost raw fear in his features would have scared you under regular circumstances, but now... it seemed almost funny, but the chuckle died in your throat.

The yellow paladin angled his body towards yours and dug up his hand from underneath the live preserve blanket. He was still wearing his gloves, but when he touched your cheek you barely felt it.

It was weird, you thought to yourself, how you could lean your head into his palm, know it was there, feel the resistance but barely register any touch.  
Suddenly you felt like crying.

"How long since the shivers stopped?" His voice reached you from further away, even though he was right there in front of you, and you blinked and stared at him for a heartbeat before fully understanding him.

"Don't know." You answered slowly, tongue thick in your mouth. "A while?"

His eyebrows drew closer together as he studied your face, and his breath showed as soft puffs of white air when he sighed.

"Are you hallucinating? Any thoughts of it getting hot in here? That kinda thing?"

You shook your head truthfully, and waited. What was he getting at?  
His brown eyes continued to search your face, and more than once he drew a breath as if to say anything, but in the end didn't. Eventually, he made up his mind.

"Can you take off the upper part of your armour? And maybe the suit underneath, too?"

You narrowed your eyes at him, even though a tired smile played around your lips.  
"Hunk, we're freezing to death in a gigantic metal lion that is a spaceship slash weapon of mass destruction; are you asking me to strip for you? Now?"  
He rolled his eyes but you caught the upward twitch his mouth did.  
"You know, if Lance'd be here I'd be careful saying those things." His voice took on a more serious tone. "But you're right about one thing, you'll freeze to death. Sooner than me, that is. Human skin contact is better at warming and keeping warm than anything we have at our dispose right now, something you taught me by the way, and if we huddle together we might both make it out of this."

There was no false hope in his voice, and it had lost the somewhat 'all will turn out good' note his tone usually suggested. Hunk wasn't a man to worry much, but you knew you were past worrying now. Either the distress signal was out there, leading the castle of lions to your location and hopefully rescue in a few hours - or days; or...  
Or your life would end a lot sooner than you'd thought, in a remote location somewhere on a planet made of ice and snow, with one of the people you had least expected to ever become friends with.

Hunk was still watching you carefully, and probably waiting for your okay, so you lifted yourself from your slumped position against the wall and nodded.

"You're right, even though I don't remember ever teaching you that. Let's do it."

Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was the situation, maybe it was the fact it was Hunk you were stranded with - the appeal of warmth, however small, was greater than any possibly existing shame.

Your joints, stiff from the lack of motion and low temperature, didn't allow you to reach the small zippers and buttons holding the armour together, and after a moment of struggling Hunk's voice floated near your ear.

"Let me help?"

Defeated, you dropped your efforts in trying to reach the tiny opening, and only felt a dull pull when he tugged on the plates surrounding your chest and upper body.

"There we go." He mumbled, and suddenly you felt the familiar tightness falling away.  
You shimmied out of the white and black parts, and felt a bit chilly when the cold air touched the black suit underneath. With your back still turned towards the other paladin you pulled the long undershirt out of the matching pants and over your head.

The temperature dropped immediately, making you shake so badly you could barely let go of the black garment and turn around.

Hunk's eyes were still trained on your face, his own features full of worry, and he opened his arms still holding the blanket.

He turned his head away respectfully to not get a face full of your chest after you'd come limping over and sat down in his lap, and only when you settled against his upper body did he glance back.

"You've been working out." You mumbled into the crook of his neck, folding your arms between his and your chest and trying to avoid touching your hands anywhere on his body. "S' warm."

It was better than you could've hoped. Even though the shock from exposing yourself to the freezing air before still sat deep in your bones, the warmth Hunk's body radiated was lulling you in and making it bearable.  
You were shivering again when he tucked the second tin foil blanket around his front and you along it, but now it was because of feeling the temperature returning to your body.

He chuckled at your words and placed his chin on top of your head after making final adjustments to the blankets.  
"You're not wearing a bra." He retorted, in an even voice, with no flirtatious undertones, more as a matter of fact.

"I never do when we're wearing suits, the compression shirt and the armour usually holds everything in place." You'd have shrugged, but given your current situation, didn't.

"Interesting."  
There was a hint of snark in his voice, and you grinned against his collarbone.

"Do you think Allura-"  
"Alright let's stop right there." You laughed, and saw Hunk smiling from the corner of your field of vision. He briefly tightened his grip on your lower back before shifting and settling into a more comfortable position.

"Sorry." He mumbled after a while of neither of you speaking.

"It's fine." You softly shook your head. "At least its something to talk about and stay awake with, I guess. If you have any more questions burning in your mind concerning me, then feel free to ask. It's not like we could die here or anything."

"Alright, let me think."

He tipped his head back and you watched his adam's apple move softly as the paladin swallowed.

"Okay, I got one. Did you knew any of us before we, you know, got into all of this? From the academy?"

"Yes, actually. I mean, not closely, but I saw you around. I knew Keith before, though, from pilot lessons, and Lance from seeing him around class. Probably saw you and Pidge hanging out with Lance, but besides him mentioning your names a few times I never really had a picture of you two until we attended that flight simulator where you puked into the engine compartment."

At that, Hunk groaned, and involuntarily held you tighter.  
"Great. That's an awesome first impression to have of someone, truly."  
You poked a numb fingertip into the muscle underneath his collarbone.  
"Hey, you've made a hella progression since that. Don't wanna say you've only become better but... you know."

"Thanks." He deadpanned, before breaking into a low giggle.

"What about me? Any memories concerning me before I tumbled out of the blue lion as a blind passagier?"

The taller guy took a moment to think, before admitting: "No, not really. No, wait, hold on, I do remember one time a guy tripped and shouted something before spilling all of his books across the hallway, and I think you were his friend who had to sit down next to him because you were laughing so hard."

You felt heat creep up your neck and closed your eyes at the memory.

"That was you, wasn't it?" Hunk asked, unknowingly pouring salt into the wound.

"...yes." You begrudgingly mumbled.

"Not a good memory either, huh?" There was a laugh in his voice, and you knew he had a point.

"Not my brightest moment. In my defense, though, his expression and him shouting 'fiddlesticks' at such a high volume... it was too much for me to handle."

"Do you always laugh when people ge- aaaaah ha ha, stop that!!"

In an effort to stop him from talking you had pressed two of your half dead and equally cold fingers into the area of his ribs.

The mechanic tensed up immediately, clenching his arms around you and momentarily rendering you breathless.

"Not. Funny." He pressed out between clenched teeth, and you hurried to apologize. At least partly.

He muttered something under his breath, too low for you to hear, before releasing you from his almost chokehold against his body.

The silence returned as both of you hung over on days and good times long past, when none of the dangerous space stuff had yet come in touch with any of you in this matter. Back when you had all been students, worrying about passing the next simulator test and wondering when they were going to start serving fries in the cafeteria again.

"Do you think the lions wouldn't have crashed here if it'd have been Allura piloting Blue?" You rose your voice again, quietly, speaking out a thought that had churned in your head ever since the giant ships had gotten stuck here.

Hunk was quick to answer, and the pressure of his hands on your back increased.

"No. Don't say stuff like this. None of this is your fault, in any way."

"But Blue was Lance's lion before Red chose him, what if Allura should have been the one to pilot Blue now, what if-"

"Hey." You felt him move and look down on you. When you lifted your face out of the spot it had been nestled in for the last half an hour, you found yourself inches away from his, and the stern expression paired with the soft look in his eyes made your eyes burn.  
You couldn't stand to look at him for longer than a few moments and dropped your gaze to the side.

"Don't tear yourself down like this. It's not your fault, you hear me? Even Allura couldn't have prevented this, I'm certain of it. She might have her magic and all that, but even she couldn't just snap her fingers and power up our lions again."

"But I wasn't even meant to be there! I only snuck into Blue because I had seen Keith leaving the compound and whizzing past it with a crapton of people on his flyer, and then the entrance to the cave and- I was barely past the mouth when Lance started up and it left Earth! I'm not-"

"No no no, no. Don't say that. None of us were ready for this, remember? We all had such difficulties adjusting, it's not your fault. Any of it, okay? Allura would maybe have acted differently in our situation, but that doesn't mean the outcome would be any better." His voice went quieter. "Besides, I'd much rather be stuck with you than with the princess."

Stunned by his honesty, and a bit touched as well, you stayed silent for the next moments.

Then, after letting his words sink in a bit...

"You like me better than Allura?"

Your voice was unbelievably small, in disbelief and wonder, and you fearfully awaited his response.

"Well- Yeah." Hunk's shoulder shrugged the slightest bit as he shifted minimally again. "We have a lot more in common, you know. Went to the academy, are human, I guess..."

He fell silent.

"You're right, we have an awful lot in common."

The sarcasm was strong in this one, and Hunk grunted.

"Allura is... she's strong, but sometimes she isn't as open minded as she likes to think about herself. Which, you know, isn't a bad thing, it's just... a lot of the time I feel like she knows she's superior to us, you know."

You hummed in understanding.

 

This time the silence lasted, and in it you listened for any sounds, any noise that could mean help was on its way. Only the wind howled around the edges of the lion, moaning and whistling, and you felt a certain sleepiness sneak its way into your core.

"Hey, Hunk, if we make it out of this, let's bake cookies in the castle's kitchen, okay?"

He didn't respond right away, so you waited for a few hearbeats before lifting your head.

"Hunk?"

His head was tipped forward, eyes closed, and there was icing on the strands of hair that fell into his face.

Mild panic clenched into you guts.

"Hunk!"

He jerked awake, blinking and shaking his head, before making eye contact with you. Again, your face were inches apart, and he sighed and leaned his forehead against yours.

"Sorry. Didn't pay attention and just-"

"Don't scare me like that." Your voice was a whisper as you closed your eyes, trying to keep the tears pricking at your eyes at bay. "I couldn't live with myself if you'd-"

You didn't finish the sentence, but you didn't have to. Hunk knew what you had meant.

He sighed, and his breath touched your face.

"Let's don't think about that, okay." His voice had gone down an octave, and he kept his eyes cast down. "It never really occured to me I could die like this, you know."

"I doubt anyone would think they'll get shipwrecked and freeze to death on some planet."

"Yeah, but, I guess I just imagined something a little more... meaningful, I guess. After flying the yellow lion and forming Voltron and all... that."

"What would be a meaningful death for Hunk Garett?"

"Maybe going down against an over powerful enemy. Or, you know, the crystal of the castle frying the engines and me dying heroically next to Coran as we attempt to cool things off. That kinda thing. Or somewhere on Earth, after a long live of tinkering on machines and raising a few kids, out on a farm."

"That sounds nice."

It was your turn to grow heavy with exhaustion, head filling with sleep, and Hunk had to shake you a bit to keep you here and now.

His heartbeat, not far from your head, was slow and steady, and you counted the sound until you forgot which number you were on, started again but let it slide eventually.

"Do you remember that nursery rhyme they did a remix of during freshman year? The one with-"  
"Oh jeez, that you even want to go back to that! It was all they ever played in the dorms for months. Of course I remember."

"Wanna sing it with me?"

Stunned by the proposal, you needed a moment to recover. It had been months since you had even thought last about the melody, lest the lyrics, but with a bit of help from the yellow paladin you were able to remember it all.

In the quiet, cold air, with only your own and Hunk's significantlly deeper voice, the song almost sounded nice, if one didn't pay attention to what exactly the words were referring to.

You managed to do three rounds before breaking out of the chorus and hiding your face at his shoulder.

"I can't go on." You said, defeated, and felt Hunk's chest shaking with laughter. There was a grin on your face as well, and you spent a few minutes calming down.

The male absentmindedly rubbed his hands up and down your back, while staring off into the distance.

"What are you thinking about."

His eyes flickered over and met yours, before scooting off into a corner of the small room.

"Nothing, really. Just... trying to recall all the good stuff that happened to me. Still can't really believe this'll be the end."

His change of mood caught on, and you lowered your chin onto his shoulder.

"Maybe it's not." Trying to sound positive wasn't really your strenght, but with Hunk on the verge of giving up you couldn't really... It triggered a protective spark in you, and it slowly build up to something that was almost hope. Almost.

The quiet gaps between conversation grew larger, until you were only listening to Hunk's breaths and couldn't remember when either of you had spoken last.

It had grown cold again, colder than any before, and even in the close proximity to the other paladin and with the blankets wrapped around you, breathing became painful. There was a thin sheet of ice over the male's shoulder, where your breath touched the foil.

At some point he had switched his hands from above the blanket around your shoulders to below, after lying down of the floor completely, and piling the functional clothing you had shed on top of both of you.

One arm was resting over the small of your back, barely higher than your hips, and the other held you tight around your shoulders. Your legs were folded in half by the paladin's hips, and he had propped his own up.

You imagined time itself slowly froze.

"Weid question, I know, but-" Hunk's voice cracked, much more than usual, and he sounded tired and defeated. You didn't open your eyes, you knew where he was, and besides, it wouldn't have made much of a difference.

The glow in the dark emergency lights, working with solar panels, had gone out, and the bit of grey light that was able to penetrate the lion's eyes and shine through the halfway closed door to where you were was hardly enough to make out shapes.

"Can I kiss you? This is likely the last time I ever get the chance to do that, and even though you're probably not interested in me in that kinda way I'd just really like to-"

A hum from you made him cut his rushed explanation short.

"Don't worry, it's fine. You're my friend, and I love you, and if it makes you happy we can."  
His upper arm inched closer to your shoulders, his hand readjusting where it lay on your arm, and you took that as a sign to lift your head.

In the darkness it wasn't entirely easy to find your way around, and you trailed the tip of your nose through the crystals of ice that had formed on your teammate's cheek before he turned his head and, with sheer luck, fit his lips against yours.

It was weird, not only because you didn't really feel the kiss, but because you had never thought of Hunk in that way. It wasn't bad, to kiss him like this, just a prolongued peck on the lips without any gross tongue action, and part of you wished you could do it more often, simply to show affection.

It only lasted a moment before Hunk broke the contact and hugged you higher up his chest, and closer, and it took you a moment to recognize the soft shakes of his shoulders as sobs.

"I can't believe we'll die here." He whispered between his dry sobs, nose blocked and voice thick with uncried tears.

"I don't want to die." You whispered back, feeling the burning behind your own, closed lids. "I feel like I've forgotten what warmth is."

"Do you remember the summer in the academy, when class got cancelled because it got so hot?"

"Yeah." You mumbled, you numb lips and mouth nearly swallowing the sound.

"I love you too, you know that?" He brought out, excrutiatingly slow dragging in a deep breath.

"I know." You said back, even though you hadn't dared to think so until now. "I love you too, Hunk."

You tried to open your eyes again but ice had formed on your lashes, sticking them together, and all you could think of was the castle of lions, somewhere out there, far far away, too far away to rescue you now.

"Hunk?" It was a whisper, but his heartbeat was still there, close to yours, but he'd gone silent. "Hunk..."

He didn't answer, and you mentally curled in on yourself. He wasn't dead, and so weren't you, not yet, not yet, there was still time, still time for the others to find you, to reach you...

You tried to focus on the gigantic white space ship, on the turquoise blasters, on the dark skinned princess standing underneath the crystal, basked in its light, but your attention, your focus was slipping.

Dimly, you thought, 'This must be the end.'  
There was no way to get closer to Hunk than now, but you clenched your eyes shut and strained your ears to listen to his faint pulse, still sounding out against the silence that enveloped you, draped heavy across your head and made everything but the very middle of your chest seem cold, lifeless and without emotion.

The universe was cruel, and you should've known, you thought, before softly exhaling.

Breathing became difficult. Only once in a while you were able to draw a breath, and even then it was shallow.

You didn't feel the cold anymore, it wasn't warm but it wasn't unpleasant either.

Breathe in.

Were they even aware you were missing? How much time had passed since you had left the castle? It had been Tuesday, maybe, or not, you couldn't really tell, in space, so far away from Earth, where it may have been Tuesday at some point.

Breathe out.

Was Hunk dead? Would you be, soon, too? What happened afterwards? Would someone find you, eventually, and become the new blue paladin? Would the storm outside rage on forever, cover you in a coat of ice and snow, slowly assimilating you into the core of the planet?

Breathe. In...

There was no sound but the flow of your own blood in your ears, too loud, and a ringing noise, like after listening to music too loudly.

Hunk's desperate confession floated through your mind.

Breathe... out...

Your last thought was your family, both on Earth and the one you'd found among the stars, and how grateful you were to have been able to share your life with them.

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of nowhere; I literally woke up one day and this came tumbling out of my fingers.  
> I don't know how or why it happened, but my love for Hunk has steadily grown over time... he's great squish-material.
> 
> And... I'm sorry.


End file.
